👬“Let’s hold hands as we plummet.”🎈Balloonfest 👽 Mars 2112 ✨have you heard of Ghost Church?👻
🍭 👂 You're in for a treat! 🌈 🤸♀️
Bonjour!
Today is Monday, April 18. There are 17 days until I go on my next Disney cruise. If you want me to send you a postcard from the cruise, fill out this form. In case this email is too long, please listen to Arielle and me on The Alarmist here, RIP NYC’s Mars 2112 here, stop everything and listen to this exciting trailer.
This week we’re getting to peek into the listening life of Christopher De La Cruz, an Afro-Latino comedian, storyteller and educator. He has taught theater and storytelling in every borough of New York City, was a Keynote Speaker at SXSWEdu, and a high school teacher in the South Bronx.
The app you use to listen: Spotify - because I like my music and podcasts all in one app.
Listening speed: I will speed up audiobooks, but I won’t speed up podcasts. I don’t know why.
One show you love that everybody loves: Hm… I really love Vulture’s Good One where Jesse David Fox interviews a comedian about a joke from a recent special. I LOVE hearing the behind the scenes of how a joke was crafted and think Fox is a great interviewer. But I also don’t know if that’s a podcast everyone loves.
One show you love that nobody talks about: A niche podcast I love is Caffeine for the Soul by Michael Neill. It’s less than 10 minutes. Comes out every Monday. Has great start of the week (while brushing your teeth) insights.
How do you discover new shows? I think I am a unique podcast listener where I don’t consistently follow shows, but will discover things through topics. You can see it in my screenshot - when I am going through a phase where I want to learn more about stand-up comedy, I will specifically look up interviews with comics I am inspired by. If I am going through a health issue, I will specifically look up interviews on that topic. I use podcasts as a source of information more than a source of entertainment.
One show you love that most people don't know about.
Hm… I really love Vulture’s Good One where Jesse David Fox interviews a comedian about a joke from a recent special. I LOVE hearing the behind the scenes of how a joke was crafted and think Fox is a great interviewer. But I also don’t know if that’s a podcast everyone loves.
Anything else you want to say..
I love the Pod People Community and how supportive it is. If you want to get to get to know more about me, check out my reel and follow me on IG @chris_dlc_.
xoxo lp
ps If you are pleased with Podcast The Newsletter, please spread the word.
👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
Shantae Howell
Shantae Howell is the host and creator of Edges. Follow DCP on Twitter here.
How did the show change from the moment you dreamed of it to the moment it became a reality?
I originally envisioned that each season of the show would have one episode about me, I’d pass the baton to others and use narration to relate to other folks and their stories along the way. I wasn’t giving my story the space to breathe in part because it didn’t feel right to spend so much time in my community and not give that space to others. Which, I hope to do more of in the future! But right now I’m kind of getting my bearings, working my bill-paying job and just…haven’t proven myself enough to ask folks for that kind of space in their lives.
What do you want white people to get from Edges? Or are you not even thinking about them?
One of my best friends, Jana (she’s in episode 2), taught me about this concept called “inner circle outer circle.” Essentially, space is created and dedicated for the community at the center with the opportunity for others to listen and learn. That’s kind of what I hope Edges is for listeners – it’s for Black people, and I’m not going to (over) explain things but if it gives other folks a starting point to Google and empathize, I love it.
Are podcasts good for mental health?
They’re certainly good for mine! Though…every pod has a time and a place. I love a good true crime sitch. I grew up watching my daddy, Keith Morrison, do the Lord’s work on Dateline while my mom did my hair. Dateline’s still a big part of how we bond today, even though she doesn’t do my hair anymore. But these days I find myself more drawn towards storytelling and comedy, and literally anything that doesn’t involve law enforcement.
Why are you the perfect host for this show?
I definitely don’t feel like I’m the right fit for the show on most days – though I guess if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have had the idea? BUT I do try to be conscious of my privilege and how much space I take up and maybe that’s enough.
How do you balance talking about heavy/honest stuff and being super funny?
To quote my friends at Guys Next Door, it's simply…the Blackness. Humor is in our DNA, avoidance is in mine so every tender moment must be met with a giggle (therapists love dat). My life is beautiful and wonderful and full of joy but I would certainly hold a few of the harder moments a bit heavier if I didn’t find reasons to laugh. Or maybe I’d have gone to therapy sooner, who knows.
What is one show you love that most people already love?
The Read is a weekly must for me, some of the inside jokes I refuse to explain are directly borrowed from their Hot Tops. The Ballad of Billy Balls and Anything for Selena are also beautiful pieces of storytelling that I return to every now and again for a good cry — I’ve drawn so much inspiration from both shows as I’ve found my footing.
hey.
✨Last week I launched the Podcast Swap Database, where you can find podcasts with similar sizes and themes to partner with them on promo swaps, feed swaps, whatever. Please enter your podcast here! The database will get better and better as more people submit. And if you have already submitted—THANK YOU! Now I need you to go back and check the database and look for your next podcast friend. Learn more in Podcast Marketing Magic.
✨Sam Sethi invited me on Podland to talk about the database. You can listen here.
✨If you want to hear me talk about podcast marketing for TWO AND A HALF HOURS!!!, sign up for my session of Radio Boot Camp on 6/6. I can’t wait.
✨PodChaser’s #Reviews4Good 2022 is donating 25 cents to World Central Kitchen with every review and reply on the platform. Get reviewing and replying! You have until May 1.
✨Matriarch Digital Media is raising money for micro grants to independent Women of Color podcasters. If you have benefited from the wisdom, kindness, and generosity of Twila Dang, you should donate here.
🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨
Last week I dove into old episodes of Love + Radio, and interview show by Nick van der Kolk that has been running since 2005, but for the last few years has been behind the Luminary wall. For the first time I feel like I can’t dirty a show’s brilliance with my shitty writing so I’m kind of speechless. Just go listen to it.
⚡️News from Sounds Profitable⚡️
Sounds Profitable has some hell-yes stuff about how podcast advertising industry can actually help drive more podcasters to implement improvements when it comes to providing episode transcriptions. Why Brian believes no advertiser should buy inventory on a podcast that doesn’t include transcriptions of their episodes. Read here.
💎BTW💎
🚨WEE-OHHH, WEE-OHHH, WEE-OHH!🚨 The trailer for Jamie Loftus’ new podcast Ghost Church has launched. Listen here.
🎙️The second episode of Last Day’s season on gun control almost broke me. Stephanie goes to Montana to meet Larry and Shannon Martell, whose son committed suicide with a gun that was in the home, to meet a father who says he’d never talk on mic but ends up breaking down. This is veryx5 hard to listen to. Stephanie ends the episode saying “Guns are fun. And they kill people.” (On a lighter note, somewhere in there she also says talking to the Martells put things into perspective for her. “There are no podcast emergencies.” Which I really appreciated to hear.”) Listen here.
🎙️If you want to be broken once again with a troubling story about a teen suicide, listen to Erica Heilman’s The Finn and the Bell on Rumble Strip, now that it’s been nominated for a Peabody. (Go, Erica!) Listen here.
🎙️It was a bummer of a day when Molly Lambert’s podcast Night Call shuttered its doors. It was a special, eerie place, that transported you on a lone roadtrip across America in the middle of the night. It felt like a weird radio station you had stumbled upon, but it was hosted by three wickedly funny and smart people. (The other two: Tess Lynch and Emily Yoshida.) Molly has a new show, Heidiworld, and it’s here! It’s a look at how ambitious LA girl Heidi Fleiss rose to become a “Hollywood Madam” in the early 90s, and how she fell at the hands of American sexual hypocrisy. This is a truly LA story that feels important to Molly. I would pay attention to anything that sparks her interest and think she’ll do a killer job. Listen here.
🎙️Con story podcasts are huge right now, but Laura Beil is hosting an unusual one called Sympathy Pains that explores possibly the most difficult kind to pull off, because it involves toying with not just people’s money, but their goodness and emotions. The kind of con Sarah Delashmint was pulling off takes discipline. Sarah was fully dedicated to this story that she was disabled, and had cancer (plus some other illnesses I lost track of) and used a wheelchair at a camp for people with disabilities, where camp counselors were bathing her, changing her menstrual pads and helping her with all her needs. She had a real knack for finding the most vulnerable people as her targets. This six part series focuses on how Sarah manipulated her friendships to con a bunch of women who ended up coming together to confront her, get justice, and drag her on The Dr. Phil Show. Listen to the first three episodes now.
🎙️Since it launched in 2019, Rebecca Delgado Smith’s The Alarmist has been one of my favorite shows. It’s a comedy/history podcast that sets out to put blame on one person or concept for disasters as small as the woman who sued MacDonalds for burning herself on coffee to as big as the Trail of Tears. Even the darkest episodes are (respectfully) funny, but I think it could be taught in history classrooms. Arielle Nissenblatt and I were guests on an episode about Balloonfest ‘86, something near and dear to my heart. (It’s about the poor city of Cleveland and their attempts to compete with Disneyland. And millions of balloons.) We had an absolute blast and the story is absurd. Listen here.
🎙️The Washington Post had launched an investigative podcast about how no-knock warrants are deployed in the American justice system, Broken Doors, that brings us to the home and families that have been impacted by no-knock raids, including a 6-year wrongful death lawsuit involving one of the only raids heading to trial. Each of these stories highlights a bunch of bad apple cops tied to a corrupt system that has cops breaking into houses without reason, often in search of money they won’t report. By talking to people like Wanda Stegall, whose boyfriend was killed when the police raided his house for drugs, we see the trauma of the people caught up in the mess and what’s left once the cops are on their merry way. We don’t see it, we feel it. The reporting feels close and the storytelling is unfiltered. Listen here.
🎙️Still Processing is back for a new season (which will mostly be Wesley Morris flying solo—Jenna Wortham is on book leave) with a fantastic episode about pop cultural hierarchies. Wesley loves lists like Casey Kasem’s American, but he has invited academic and critic Daphne A. Brooks on the show, who points out the way they gatekeep and censor our world. These lists are in the business of quantifying things, not qualifying them. It’s not a collection of taste, it’s a collection of numbers. And more dangerously, it’s a fight against extinction. Top lists often bury things being created by marginalized communities. Are these canons repairable and do they offer any real value? I was clinging to every word that came out of Daphne’s mouth—for her ideas and her way with words. Listen here.
🎙️I have been listening to Jon Gabrus and Mike Mitchell since the very beginning of my podcast life—Jon hosts High and Mighty and is on just about every comedy podcast you can find, and Mike Mitchell is one half of Doughboys. They have provided me with more laughter than I can wrap my brain around. (Listen to Gabrus on Punch Up the Jam—it’s one of my favorite episodes of that show.) But on an episode of High and Mighty, they get pretty vulnerable about what it’s like to be fat. (“Let’s hold hands as we plummet.”) You don’t often hear men talk about their weight struggles, especially as people who equate being the fat funny guy with their ability to land acting jobs. And to top it all off, Mike is co-host of a fast food review show that could easily crush any attempts he has at living a healthy life.) I’m about the same age as these guys, and I was confronted with my own aging. These guys don’t just want to be beach body ready for summer, they’re worried about dying young. (Both of their dads did.) Listen here.
🎙️Goodniks is a limited series about 10 people who do good in the world in different ways, but instead of running long interviews with each of them, their journeys are woven together for beautiful, impactful episodes about why people do good and what threatens to derail them. All superheroes have origin stories, and for the first episode, we get to know these people (and we’ll get to know them more throughout the season.) Listen now.
🎙️For his podcast Imaginary Worlds, Eric Molinsky has gotten requests over the years to do an episode about why many autistic people are drawn to science fiction. He couldn’t find much material on it so did the work himself, interviewing four autistic people—a fiction writer, a professor, a YouTube presenter, and a publisher of the company Autonomous Press, to tell the story his listeners are so eager to hear. There are so many interesting answers to the question—whether it’s aliens or magical creatures, outside characters are relatable for people with Autism. (“In a way, all alien characters are autistic.”) For many marginalized people, sci-fi offers the ultimate imaginary world, which gives people a sense of certainty that they do not feel in the real world. This is an original, mind-bending piece that will give you empathy for people who live in the world differently, and an understanding for the importance of the ways we tell our stories. Listen here.
🎙️Scamfulencers unpacks fun (lol) scams—the first episode is one about a ballerina who wanted to start an “inclusive” ballet company that ends in..spoiler alert…a death that totally surprised me, and turned a funny scam into an episode of Dateline. But it’s the hosts that makes this show stand out. Scaachi Koul and Sarah Hagi have good chemistry but they aren’t cheesy or predictable, which makes Scamfluencers of merit whether Scaachi and Sarah are talking about a killer ballerina or whatever. Listen here.
🎙️The new season of Motive is all about the hidden world of big prisons in small towns, digging up truths about the violence and cover ups occurring in our criminal justice system every day. On Us Vs. Them, we hear about Damaria Bates and Jimia stokes, two Black mental health workers who worked inside the Pontiac Correctional Center in Illinois, and the things they witnessed inside. In being humane, they were accused of over-identifying with the incarcerated people there, and were bullied, made to feel unsafe, and basically chased out of the system for doing their jobs. The show makes prisons seem completely fucked and unfixable, but hearing about the personal stories of Damaria and Jimia add a personal element that makes the whole thing feel more frustrating. Motive is using very personal narratives to make the story feel more real—each character exploration pulls on you in a different way. Listen here.
🎙️Subtitle combines the history of language and the environment that leaves us wondering if the climate crisis could make French-speakers in Louisiana extinct. It’s the best explanation I’ve ever heard of why we have Creole and Cajun coming from several different waves of French people in places like New Orleans. With each hurricane comes the loss of French-speaking people, and the possible loss of an entire culture. Listen here.
🎙️Griffin Newman was on a laugh-packed episode of Podcast the Ride about New York City’s Mars 2112 restaurant (may god bless its soul.) If you visited this strange place (I took my Grandmother, may god bless her soul, there in 2007?) this is a must-listen because you will be reminded how completely weird and off this place was. And if you haven’t had the pleasure of dining with the alien go-go dancers, you will not believe how completely weird and off this place is. It’s sort of a celebration of one of the worst places in the world, Time Square, a place so bad you have to laugh so you don’t cry. Listen here.
🎙️Life Examined has an episode on play which begins with a defense of the grasshopper in the Ant and the Grasshopper story, offering a philosophical argument that games are the meaning of life. To play a game is “to voluntarily take an unnecessary obstacles to make possible the experience of struggling to overcome them.” The constraints and obstacles are the point. But what are we missing as our world becomes more gamified? How do you qualify something like art, which cannot be measured with a Fitbit? Tristan Donovan, author of It’s All a Game takes us through the 5,000 history of games, explaining how we have struggled over the years of balancing difficulty and reward, and how even something like Qanon is really just a game. It will change the way you view almost everything you do. Listen here.
🎙️When Marilyn Vann applied for citizenship in the Cherokee Nation as an adult, she was denied. This was the beginning of her journey to figure out why, where for an episode of The Experiment she finds the dark history of Cherokee enslaved Africans, who were brought West on the Trail of Tears and put to work. A treaty in 1866 stated that people who had been emancipated by the Cherokee (called the Freedmans) would, along with their descendants, “have all the rights of native Cherokees” but Marilyn’s story is an example that the promise has been broken. It’s an enlightening, uncomfortable and personal episode that complicates the way we think about race in America. Listen here.
🎙️At the same time I’m learning the history of the Cherokee people and enslaved Africans, All My Relations drops a two-part episode about Black native history and kinship and the Freedman descendants. Matika Wilbur and Adrienne Keene bring even more light to the episode of The Experiment, with conversations with Dr. Tiya Miles and Amber Starks about why some Tribes were forced to bend to colonial standards and act in ways antithetical to Indigenous values by owning slaves, and how we can normalize and uplift multidimensional identities of Black and Native peoples. These both end up being conversations about the universal ways both groups can fortify their authentic selves when history has erased so much of who they are. Listen here and here.
🎙️I love you!